An Overview of Estate Planning

Everyone needs an estate plan. Even if you are young, healthy, single, and broke – you won’t be all of those things forever, and before you know it you’ll have something you want to protect, and you’ll want to make things as easy on your loved ones as you can. Generally I recommend three instruments:

Your Last Will and Testament is a document with which you are probably familiar, and it contains detailed instructions to be followed upon your death regarding the disposition of your property and other relevant matters.
Your Advance Directive for Health Care is a statutory form in Georgia and allows you to designate a “Health Care Agent”. The document also spells out your treatment preferences which you want your Health Care Agent to follow, in the event you are in a medical condition that leaves you unable to express your treatment preferences on your own.
Your Durable Power of Attorney is also a statutory form in Georgia, which allows you to designate an agent (your “attorney in fact”) who is authorized to take financial actions on your behalf.

Of course, an estate plan can be a whole lot more complicated than that, but not everyone needs that. We handle the above, on an inexpensive, flat-fee basis, because we believe it is critically important that everyone should have at least these basic instruments in place, rather than leaving such matters up to overworked judges dealing with family members who might be at each other’s throats. However, if any of the following apply to you, please let us know, as we may recommend that you meet with a colleague who handles more sophisticated estate planning needs:

If you have property (especially real estate) that you want some of your heirs to share after you are gone.
If you have property located in more than one state/country, or property located outside the United States.
If you want your property left to your children, but some or all of them are not quite old or mature enough to be able to handle it on their own, so you want someone else to manage it for them and/or pay for certain things (e.g., college) until they reach a certain age.
If you own your own business and would like to provide for succession of the business in an orderly way.
If you are (or expect to become in the near future) multi-millionaires.
If you are (or expect to be) beneficiaries of an estate plan put in place by someone else who has substantial assets.
If your accountant and/or financial advisor recommended you explore a trust or other estate planning tool not mentioned above.

Even for people who need or could benefit from something more sophisticated, at a minimum I still recommend you put a basic plan in place as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is all I need to know for now:

Your full name, date of birth, and contact information (phone, email, and home address)
The same information for your spouse, if you are married
The full names and dates of birth of all of your children
If there are other people to whom you want to leave property (regardless of their relationship to you), the full names of each of them
A list of specific bequests you wish to make (e.g., “my baseball card collection should go to my brother Steve”), if any
A “residual beneficiary” (such as your favorite church, college, charity, or other organization) to inherit your property if literally everyone else who could inherit from you dies before you do (sorry if that’s a little morbid!)
Your executor for your last will and testament, and a successor – need full name, address, phone, and email for each
Your health care agent for your advance directive, and a successor – need full name, address, phone, and email for each
Your “attorney in fact” for your durable power of attorney, and a successor – need full name, address, phone, and email for each

Contact us to provide this information, and we can draft this for you very quickly. Let us know if you have any questions – and thank you!